Your Sister's Sister (2011)

We loved this story of the awkward triangle between a man, Jack (no relation), his late brother's girlfriend (now his best friend) Iris, and her half-sister Hannah. Plenty of cringing, and honest, raw emotions, plus beautiful scenery from the Seattle area. We hadn't seen the trailer before watching the movie, and I'm glad, because it really gives away too much, as do a number of reviewers, as usual. Mark Duplass (in three of the last six movies I've blogged about below, and another to come) with his deepest role we've seen so far, stars as Jack, a slacker trying to carry on a year after his brother's death.  Emily Blunt's (last in these pages in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) Iris, whose English accent is explained in the beginning of the second act, is sweet as the beautiful friend concerned about Jack's welfare. Rosemarie DeWitt (covered in The Company Men), who stepped in during her hiatus from United States of Tara to play Hannah when Rachel Weisz dropped out, has just the right blend of toughness and vulnerability. There are some other actors, including comedian/This American Life contributor Mike Birbiglia, who is credited as a Consultant, in the opening party scene, but most of the movie is just the first three actors in a gorgeous island property on Puget Sound.

Directed and written by Lynn Shelton (new to me but she won two Sundance awards and an Independent Spirit Award for Humpday (2009) which starred Duplass as one of two straight men who make some gay porn), it was originally going to be about a triangle involving the friend's mother, not sister, but she decided that would be "too Oedipal." Shot in 12 days, with a lot of improvisation, there's no doubt this is an independent feature, especially with the bad, echoing sound. We noticed that the composer, Vince Smith, acted as sound mixer and supervising sound editor, and figure that's all the production could afford. Closing doors, raised voices, and music cues were mixed way too loud. The good news is that we could make out 98% of the dialogue, including the whispers.

More good news is that the music is good, but I can't find any clips. In fact, there are so many musicians named Vince, Vincent, and Vinny Smith on google that I don't even know who the guy is.

As I keep obsessing, I'm far behind on the blog, and getting farther because this is the fifth movie Jack and I have seen in five days. But I'm making a point to write now about this one, which we saw this morning, because it played on only two screens for one show each day over the weekend, and only one screen for one show per day the rest of the week, so it may be gone next week. If so, do put in in your netflix queue. Maybe the exhibitors will get wise and it will go wide instead, because the rottentomatoes critics' average is 86% and audiences 80%. In fact, its per-screen income was 26th out of the top 50 last weekend on only 95 screens in its 5th week of limited release, earning only $300 less per screen than Men in Black III, which is still on 879 screens.

It's really good, so make a point of seeing it if possible.